... Direct seeding is a common large-scale restoration practice for revegetating arid and semi-arid lands, but success can be limited by moisture and temperature. Seed coating technologies that use biochar may have the potential to overcome moisture and temperature limitations on native plant germination and growth. Biochar is a popular agronomic tool for improving soil properties, such as water avail ...

... Biologists focus on thermoregulation of desert mammals in terms of how they minimize heat gain, and put less effort on how they maximize heat gain during the cooler months. Heat gain may contribute to significant energy savings in desert mammals when the ambient temperature is substantially lower than body temperature. We investigated winter thermoregulation in free-ranging Ethiopian hedgehogs, Pa ...

... The Central Arizona Project (CAP) is a large canal system that traverses hundreds of ephemeral stream channels in the Sonoran Desert. This longitudinal barrier alters flow during runoff events, causing water to pond behind the canal's wall. We asked: How has riparian vegetation of the ephemeral streams changed over the course of 35 years in response to canal construction? We compared field data (v ...

... Landscape structure can affect connectivity among populations. In a patchy landscape, specialist species that are limited to particular elements are expected to show low gene diversity, low connectivity and high differentiation among patches. Conversely, for generalist species, genetic variability and gene flow among sites are expected to be high, and differentiation is expected to be low. Here we ...

... Domestic grazing effects on primary productivity and community structure are controversial in rangeland ecology and frequently misunderstood. Although directly related with secondary production, biomass stock and biomass production at species level (biomass composition) has been relegated in field studies, especially in arid rangelands co-dominated by woody species. We estimated grazing effects on ...

... Buffelgrass (Pennisetum ciliare) have been planted in large areas of northwestern Mexico for cattle grazing. Previous studies have documented how buffelgrass conversion affects several ecological processes; however, very few studies have documented how conversion affects local microclimate. We used data on soil temperature and moisture to document seasonal changes in microclimate as a consequence ...

... The use of native species by hydroseeding has been encouraged for the restoration of degraded Mediterranean areas, but their success is frequently low. Several biotic and abiotic constraints have been reported that partially explain such failure, but the effects of the slurry components on the performance of native species have not been evaluated so far. We used germination tests to assess the eff ...

... Biological soil crusts are communities composed of mosses, lichens and cyanobacteria. They cover a large portion of the arid and semiarid regions of the world and play key roles in nutrient cycles and soil erosion diminution. Biological soil crust might affect germination, establishment and growth of vascular plants. In this study we examined the differential response to soil cover and water avail ...

... Welwitschia mirabilis is gymnosperm endemic to the Namib Desert. Welwitschia seeds are dispersed enveloped by the winged perianth which contains, according to some authors, a germination inhibitor. In this work, after testing for the presence of an inhibitor, we determined the effects of environmental parameters (light, temperature, water limiting conditions and salinity) on the germination of dis ...

... Nicotiana species (Solanaceae) are widely distributed, mainly in the Americas and Australia. Nicotiana africana is the only species indigenous to Africa; its populations are confined to isolated mountains in the Namib Desert and thus little is known about this species' reproductive strategy or reliance on pollinators, if any. Plants grow in a sheltered environment among granite boulders and wind p ...

... It has long been recognized that the dynamics of human societies are influenced by climate change, but the degree to which climatic variation affects the rise and fall of an independent society is still debated. We tackle this issue by examining the history of the semi-nomadic Tuyuhun tribe from northwestern China that existed from the early 4th century to the middle of the 7th century AD, and its ...

... This paper aims at identifying driving forces behind land use change and the determinants of investment in land management in pastoral and agro-pastoral communities. Data were collected from 182 households through a household survey and focus group discussions. Starting with narratives, an econometric approach was used to identify the determinants. The result shows that frequent droughts repeatedl ...

... A better understanding of the factors affecting interannual variability in litter respiration is critical to precisely understand local carbon cycling, especially under the changing climate. In this study, litter respiration was obtained by subtracting in situ soil respiration in a control (LCK) treatment by that in a litter removal (LR) treatment for the period 2009–2013 in a 30-year-old black lo ...

... The Arab Gulf desert region is dominated by few shrubs and grasses, although mostly devoid of vegetation. The impact of both live and dead shrubs and grasses on plant diversity and community composition on sand dunes of the United Arab Emirates was assessed. Species richness, diversity indices (Simpson, Shannon–Wiener, and Brillouin), and plant abundance were significantly greater under dead grass ...

... For the temperate vegetation community, herbaceous biomass and species richness relationship has been eminent as a humpback response hypothesis. This appraised higher level of herbaceous richness at an intermediate level of biomass. However, no such study has been made in the sultry parched ecosystem. Hence, in the present study this kinship have been explored in the Indian hot, arid desert using ...

... In recent years, an expansion of irrigated agriculture and rapid population growth have threatened the Tarim River basin's natural ecosystems and caused water shortages. Improving the water resources management in the basin requires accurate seasonal precipitation forecasts. Based on previous research, possible predictors of precipitation were selected and either downloaded directly or calculated ...

... We assessed the temporal evolution of vegetation activity of mangroves in the Southeastern coastal of the Gulf of California (Mexico) through a multi-temporal analysis of Landsat TM images from 1990 to 2010 where time series of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) were obtained. A multivariate regression analysis showed the presence of statistically significant negative trends of NDVI ...

... Alpine vegetation in the central Tibetan Plateau is vulnerable to climate change. Nine lacustrine pollen records with well-constrained chronologies and high-resolution data were reviewed to document regional and local patterns of alpine vegetation succession in this region, and to understand the climatic driving forces for these changes. According to the relationship between modern pollen distribu ...

... Mixed or generalized pollination systems tend to establish when the benefits of the pollination services to the plant are higher than the losses. In this context, selective pressures are likely to favor the presence of floral traits adequate to a variety of pollinators. In this paper, we document the pollination ecology of Encholirium spectabile, focusing on nectar production pattern, and on the f ...